I have had a decent amount of fun/frustration with CAM on Fusion 360, so it was exciting to finally use a CNC mill. The Inventables “Carvey” was exceedingly user friendly.

First,  I selected an elephant icon from the noun project. Unfortunately, it is no longer available for download. I opened it in Adobe Illustrator, deleted the attribution text, and then was able to import the svg file into easel. With Easel, I set the size of my block of wood, drew a circle around the elephant, and played with the  spacing and sizing. I set the depth of the elephant cut to half the dept of the wood and set the circle to be cut through.

Each elephant block took approximately 22  minutes to mill. The first 16 minutes was only the elephant toolpath, so I used a 1/16″ fishtail downcut bit. After the elephant was complete, I stopped the program. I then changed the depth of the elephant tool path to 0, switched the bit to a 1/8″ straight cut, and began the carving of the circle. This carve takes 6 minutes.

I found myself watching the Carvey much more than I had to- it was quite mesmerizing! The results were very clean and I appreciated the thin tabs that were left to keep the block fixed. For post processing, I broke off the tabs, sanded the edges(80 git paper, 400 git paper, file), vacuumed  all saw dust, and applied a layer of polyurethane protective coating. I did not want any dark stain and liked  how the coating brought out the grain of the wood and kept it light.

Once again, this took longer than anticipated. I will count labor as 2 hours even though it took me longer. The carvey was reasonably quick and someone who knows what they’re doing or is  working efficiently can easily finish in  less than two hours.

Cost Breakdown:

labor: %7.50 x 2hr = $15.00

Carvey usage  $25.00 x 1 hr = $25

wood =$1

sandpaper = $3.06

protective coating = $4 /ft^2 x .125 ft =$0.50

Total=$44.56